Leftist professors, journalists and fellow comedians launched tirades against Chris Rock in response to his new Netflix stand-up special, "Selective Outrage," which came out on Saturday.
Rock made waves after he called out Meghan Markle for her accusations of racism against the royal family, criticized actress Jada Pinkett for cheating on her husband, Will Smith, and addressed the infamous slap controversy during the special.
It was the first time that Rock has spoken directly about the Oscars slap incident, which went viral almost immediately after Smith slapped the comedian live on stage during the awards show last year.
CHRIS ROCK RIPS WILL SMITH WHILE ADDRESSING OSCARS SLAP AND JADA’S ‘ENTANGLEMENTS'
Rock’s special angered thought leaders and influencers on the left, who called it "shocking," with some even arguing that he deserved to be slapped live on air in front of millions of people.
Carnegie Mellon University professor Uju Anya, who identifies as an "[a]ntiracist" and "feminist" on her official Twitter profile, said that Rock deserved to be assaulted. "Netflix keeps screwing over subscribers. They cancel hit shows people actually wanna watch and give Chris Rock millions of dollars to prove Will Smith was right to slap him."
"You have good takes, this isn’t one of them," one Twitter user told Anya.
"You have people who care what you think. I am not one of them," the professor shot back.
NBC reporter Ben Collins said that he couldn’t force himself to watch the special, an edited version of Rock's show in Baltimore. "Got 14 minutes into the Chris Rock special before my subconscious took over, said ‘okay that's enough’ out loud and turned my whole TV off. Pure animal instinct defending against hearing the same joke for the 8,000th time. My soul was dying and took control of my physical self."
"Truly shocking and I didn't have high hopes," Collins added.
"I didn’t watch that Chris Rock special and I’m not going to. But absolutely nothing being reported today surprises me. Nothing," MSNBC analyst Brittany Packnett Cunningham declared to her over 412,000 followers on Twitter.
Fox News’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
